I once had a Kansas farmer snicker at me in a “you poor naive lad” kind of way when I cited the TV weatherman as a source for what the weather would be in a few days.

One of the things Kansas farmers, actually all who live in Kansas for that matter, realize is that weather people are, more or less, making stuff up as they go along. In fact I’ve always argued that in Kansas “The weatherman says” is the phrase you use to start a joke instead of “Guy goes into a bar” This is because in Kansas the latter phrase used to be used in this manner: “Guy goes into a bar, finds out he has to buy a membership or he can’t buy a drink.”

Even though that changed a long time ago, “guy goes into a bar” jokes aren’t that popular.

I bring this up because despite it being almost shorts and t-shirt weather just a few days ago, today it snowed here in the Tokyo/Saitama. I was the only one who wasn’t surprised as one of my odd mantras about life in this area is “It always gets cold one more time. Even if you think it won’t get cold again it will get cold.” Today that was true with a vengeance.

Getting snow isn’t that unusual (it snowed in April five years ago) what was unusual was that it actually stuck in a few places rather than quickly melting. What was also unusual was that it kept snowing well into the afternoon.

It had a happy ending though because She Who Must Be Obeyed used it as a last chance to make chili. Since we used up all our kerosene for our small kerosene heaters we needed something to warm us up.

Tomorrow the weatherman says it’s going to be partly cloudy and 55 degrees Fahrenheit (13 Celsius). That’s a funny one. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Note: Heavily edited for clarity on August 7, 2015.